Last week was one of my more stressful ones in a while, but I survived it. The biggest stresses involved having to wade through the complicated and confusing process of the Japanese government system.
The first had a happy ending though. In Japan, most individuals never have to worry about the tax returns as their company will fill it our for them (lucky bastards). But as my work is comprised of 4 part time jobs (last year anyway) I had the pleasure of trying to do my own taxes. Luckily enough I found an add that the local International center, the Hamamatsu International Cultural Exchange had a free tax consultation with English translator. So on the 1st I set out and though arriving late (my stress) was still able to get help and after filling out a small stack of paper work I was almost done. The guy helping was so nice, he spent about 5 minutes trying to convince me to think of some tax write-offs to lower my tax load. Could you imagine a staff member of Revenue Canada doing the same? I think not. Well I wanted to get the taxes done with so I finally had him calculate and I will get back 13,000 yen! Thanks a lot to a nice guy and the ever-helpful Christina at HICE!
I had the opposite experience on Friday. Back on January 4th, the first day it was open after winter holidays, Ritsy and I went down to immigration to apply for my Visa extension and found the place packed. Actually Ritsy had to stay in the car and wait for a spot, so I went in alone. The office looks like it was built back in 1978 and the last time they cleaned it was about a week later. There is no clear signs about where to line up and no number taking system etc... So I basically stood there for about 15 minutes without any clear idea of where to hand in my forms. Finally Ritsy came in and stopped a nice helper lady behind the desk and she took my information and photocopied my Passport and told us to go home as they can't help us that day. So we left. Well on Feb 2nd I was getting a little antsy because my Visa expires on the 8th, so I asked Ritsy to call them. They said they didn't have my application! The man on the phone then proceeded to get argumentative and basically said that she was lying that we ever came in. So, Ritsy's blood was boiling now and she called their Customer Service to complain about the man on the phone. Then we headed to the office. When we got there, the staff already knew about our complaint and pulled us into the back room. Rather than being productive and helping us meet a solution, he was abrasive and told us basically that we shouldn't have gone home (though we were told to- the girl obviously was new and didn't have the right training, so I don't think it's her fault) and he kept going on about how they hadn't stamped my passport. To me this conversation was completely useless they obviously made some mistake and he was getting defensive. He then pointed out that we hadn't brought the right paperwork with us originally- fair enough, they should have called us and let us know about that rather than throw out my application (which is what I think they did). Anyway, we are sitting in this office and Ritsy, god bless her, wasn't taking his crap and he was getting angry and starting to raise his voice- I couldn't understand but I remember hitting the table and gesturing for him to calm down. Well in the conversation he said 2 things that stick out, 1. he offered to go to court to settle this ( they were by now admitting they remember us coming in- so what is there to settle???)and 2. He said "I don't care if your husband overstays his Visa" like he was challenging us. Finally I convinced my wife to ask him what we can do now to move past this silly spiral of an argument. Then the bastard started being nice to us. At that moment I imagined this man as a Samurai sitting in front of us, ready to go to battle to gain the upper hand. But I was so proud of Ritsy when we left she exclaimed "He is not forgiven" and she called Nagoya again and told them all the garbage that was said. Oh, did I mention this bastion of Customer service was the branch manager? Unbelievable!
Well I felt very deflated after this whole encounter and had a tough time getting my spirits up for the kids classes I had to teach next (sorry!). But that evening's class that I teach at Carlsson really cheered me up. That staff is always so calm, eager to talk in English and funny that I was feeling a lot better by the time I left!
Sorry for the long rant- but the story needed to be told! Back to more Hamamatsu highlights next entry.
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